Just wanted to post my recent experience with Larry Hopkins Honda in Sunnyvale, CA. I took my 99 Accord Coupe V6 in for 90k service and timing belt replacement. About a few days later, I noticed a knocking noise coming from the engine. So naturally, I thought that it was probably something they messed up on. When I took it back, their first reaction was to immediately say that there is no correlation between that symptom and the timing belt change. The service advisor even tried to threaten me by saying that if they took apart the engine and found out that it wasn't their fault, i would be charged for a 9 hour job. Luckily, I spoke to the service manager about this before taking the car in, and he said that they would take a look at it with no charge. They dragged their feet for a few days and everytime I called back asking about the status of my car, they would tell me that they are still looking for the issue or that they didn't get to my car yet, or we would have to charge you more to find out the problem. Not until I pulled in to their store after waiting for 4 days, did they give me this incredulous story:
They said that it wasn't their fault for the knocking noise in the engine, then proceeded to show me a broken off headbolt from my car's engine block was the "culprit" of the knocking noise. They said somehow it broke off on it's own and fell into the valves causing the knocking noise. They were extremely nice about it EVEN though it took them 1/2 day to take apart engine to do this and replace a tensioner on my engine for free. Flags when up in my mind when I noticed this 180degree change in attitude. I suspected that they are trying to cover up a major screw up. The really stupid thing they tried to do was to convince me to buy a new car because of this "unfortunate" turn of events.
They said due to the damage of headbolt coming off and the screw still being left in place it would be very expensive to repair the engine because when you extract it, it could cause damage to the aluminum block. So they even proposed for me to pawn this car off to some other dealership with this known fact and trade it in. That totally pissed me off, cause how could they even dare suggest a thing like this to their customer. More flags came up in my mind that this was some elaborate cover up for a mistake they made on my car's service. Not satisfied at all with their service, I took my car in the next day to private mechanic.
He told me after reading their written reports that it was total BS. Basically they were crazy to even let me drive a car in that condition off the lot. I could have been in a serious accident if the engine had failed in the middle of a freeway. I am going to pursue this matter to the fullest. I will have more updates later since I should be getting back to work. But I just thought that I should share this story just in case if anyone else in the Bay Area decides to take their car into this shady dealership.
